Saturday, 8 October 2011

Super Marion

You know, if you ask certain people around here, she was a fucking saint.

Did you know she’s walk around every evening and tidy up trash in front of the building?

Did you know she’d always be wiping down the washing machines for people?

Did you know she’d vacuum every goddamned day?

She was ‘SUPER MARION’

And she was the fucking rock star of building management. Everyone loved her. She was so cheery-so pleasant, and just a great manager. Everyone misses her.

That was the perception that we heard every day.

In reality, the paperwork was a mess. We couldn’t find anything. The leases, condition reports, notes and letters were in a huge pile. Rent had never been in on time, and the building was notorious for being unable to be collected on a timely basis.

For the record, we had:

-5 apartments fixed and rented in 1 ½ months
-rent in on time on the 2nd month on the job
-average rent, credit score, median rent have all increased dramatically in the last 2 years.

It wasn’t until we were talking to a tenant that the first crack in her armour was spoken, when out of the blue she said, “I couldn’t stand her. I think it had something to do with her getting railed next door by mystery men while I’m trying to have my morning coffee.”

But one other tenant continued to talk about her like Mother Teresa was a step down. Nothing we could do was right. We didn’t clean enough, do enough or possibly care as much as Super Marion. Dinosaur was on her hands and knees scrubbing the stairwell during renovations-renovations I might add that weren’t even discussed until a guy started running the building that did renovations, and she started complaining. Super Marion would be on top of this. All those questions at the top? They came out of her mouth.

One night there was a knock at the door, and this weird looking woman presents herself like I should already know her name.

“Hello.” She says, “I am Super Marion.”

She’s got red dye #5 hair, and is wearing a pure white, fake fur coat and matching hat. I find it hard to focus on people with a mad looking lazy eye, but I did my best.

And we talk for a bit. The story that comes out of her mouth that really catches my attention, is when she mentions Toothy from page 1. There was a manager here for 3 months between ourselves and Super Marion. He was a fat prick, threatened to remove the front doors of people that didn’t pay on time, and was generally not liked, nor respected.

Toothy I guess had reached out to Marion and talking about how different it was with him there. I mentioned to her that Toothy had moved, and she says, “oh, I remember telling them to hold on a little longer, that a better manager would be there soon. Oh! They were so nice.”

I’m sorry, um what?

They smoked pot, they didn’t pay rent and Hastings meth heads actually had a better set of teeth. What do you mean, hold on. Get the fuck out!
She still to this day occasionally floats around visiting some of the tenants. She basically leaves us alone, as I really don’t think she can recognize the changes to the building, or manage to look like she belongs anymore.